natural
by bluepianos
Summary: She starts to wear makeup. MakoGou.


**Words**: 1,749  
**Disclaimer**: I don't even know how I got into this mess.  
**Notes**: Wrote this back in the beginning of June, when I was coming out of slavery (translation, finishing high school).

**natural**

She starts to wear makeup.

It isn't even a lot, just a swipe of eyeliner along her bottom lid to enunciate the shape of her burgundy eyes, a touch of foundation to blend out the faults and blemishes in her skin, a smack of lip gloss to emphasise the fullness or her lips, and when she was feeling particularly daring, a light tinge of blush to give her that rosy, healthy aura.

It makes her look great. It makes her look good.

Hell, he thinks it even makes her look _hot_.

Of course, he can't really bring that up into a conversation; not with the rest of the team, obviously not with her, and definitely not with her brother.

Rin would probably bite his head off in an instant.

x-x-x

Naturally, the other boys notice, too.

"Hey, hey, Mako, have you noticed that Gou looks a little different these days?" Nagisa, as always, is the first to point it out as they slip out of their school uniforms and into their swimsuits before practice.

"Um, I guess? What do you mean by that exactly?" he answers vaguely. From the corner of his eye, he notices that Haru throws him a blank look – blank, unamused, and definitely littered with a few silent opinions that only Makoto can decipher.

"Oh, come on, _Captain_, you know what I mean!" Nagisa teases. "Gou's been looking great recently! You sure she isn't… y'know, trying to make a move on someone?" The short bastard leans in closer to Makoto and nudges at his hip with his elbow playfully.

Makoto's crush is far from a secret, at least when it comes to the swim team. First and foremost, he's practically physically incapable of hiding anything from Haru, who can read him like a children's book. Secondly, Nagisa has always had the tendency of making strangely accurate guesses, or maybe he just has a knack for reading the atmosphere correctly. Or maybe he just knows Makoto that well.

Or maybe he's just a scary little fucker who has a scary way of knowing just about everything.

Unfortunately, when Nagisa knows anything, Rei is bound to find out within an hour.

"Actually, Nagisa might have a point there, captain. Although Spring is the typical mating season for most species, it differs for certain categories in the kingdom Animalia, and perhaps some individuals among _Homo sapiens_ tend to have different temporal sexual preferences for mating."

Haru blinks twice. Nagisa fails to hold in a snort. Makoto looks at Rei with a weary look on his face.

"Was that absolutely necessary, Rei? Do you really think of me as an evolutionary specimen instead of your swim captain?"

Rei stutters immediately, his face blushing bright red all the way up to his ears.

"N-no, I didn't mean it in that way, c-captain! Wh-what I was trying to do was - I mean, I was just agreeing with Nagisa, and –"

"What! Don't bring me into this!" Nagisa laughs from under his shirt. He chortles even more gleefully when Rei launches towards him angrily.

"Are we going to practice or what?" Haru's voice slices through the chaos of the locker room and Makoto looks up from pinching the bridge of his nose. Rei immediately releases his grip on the front of Nagisa's shirt and the blonde boy laughs before taking the shirt off completely.

"Sorry, Haru, we'll be right out!" Nagisa grabs Rei, who's already changed of course, by the wrist, tosses his shirt in his locker, grabs his goggles and pulls the other second year out to the pool.

Haru watches the younger two students while Makoto gives him one of his "don't-move-too-much-I'm-trying-to-read-your-mind" looks but Haru beats him to it.

"What if she's trying to make a move on _you_?" Haru says, not even looking at his friend in the eye.

Makoto sputters but before he comes up with something even remotely intelligent to say, Haru disappears from his side and he hears a splash outside the door.

Really.

Practice hasn't even begun yet and he is so ready to call it a day.

x-x-x

There's a large splash of water before Gou fully comprehends that Haru had run from the locker room and dove into the pool without saying hello. She raises an eyebrow at his fluid figure under the ripples of the pool water and sighs helplessly.

"Good afternoon, Gou," Rei greets the team manager as he walks towards the pool's fences to begin stretching.

"Good afternoon, Rei!" Gou greets her classmate cheerfully, holding her clipboard close to her chest.

"Don't stretch for too long today, Rei, you might pull something. Again. That wouldn't be beautiful, would it?" Nagisa calls out to his friend as he heads to the starting blocks. He passes by Gou and pauses.

"Wow, Gou, you look especially gorgeous today!" Leaning closer than necessary into her personal space, he eyes her face with over-exaggerated intrigue. "Is that blush? No, you don't wear blush whenever there's practice, right? Maybe it's a new foundation? Or a cream this time? Whatever it is, you look great!"

"Nagisa, stop acting like a girl and start warming up," Gou says flatly, adamantly staring at the practice schedule on her clipboard and purposely avoiding eye contact with Nagisa. He chortles again - Gou twitches as she restrains herself from kicking his balls - and cannonballs into the pool, eliciting annoyed noises from Haru.

He's right, though, Gou never bothers with blush whenever there's practice and normally opts for some simple primer and eyeliner for the day. She can't really pinpoint the particular event in her life that sparked her sudden interest in using makeup, of all things, but Chigusa has been showing her the fun sides, the artistic sides to cosmetics and they've recently been using makeup to bond a lot.

She also notices that she's been garnering more attention than normal because of the change, no matter how small. She hasn't told anyone, not even Chigusa, but ever since she started wearing makeup, four guys have asked her on a date.

She hasn't told _anyone _because for one thing, she doesn't want to deal with Rin's hellishly overprotective brotherly instincts if and _when _he finds out (stage one is bearable, but stage two, when he comes home to watch her _24/7_ for at least a week is by far the _worst_). Secondly, she's not ready to date. At least, not those guys.

She wonders if _he__'__s_ noticed at all.

x-x-x

He knows exactly when she started wearing makeup because _ugh_, that was when he'd finally struck up enough courage to ask her out on a goddamn date but then she showed up to practice looking like a hundred-million yen* and his brain had fried on the spot and when she'd asked "…is something wrong, Makoto?" he'd come up with some stupid excuse about Ren or Ran or both of the twins having a cold or something and "I was just worried; I need to call them to check if they're okay, so start the practice without me; I'll be right back!" and it was humiliating and Haru (wordlessly) never lets him forget about it.

He's running a hand through his hair and scratching his head nervously while he walks towards the pool. He's mostly nervous that Gou's presence might distract him too much during practice and it'll finally reveal something about his crush on her - _what if she finds out, holy shit, Rin would slaughter him _- but he needs to get over himself and calm the hell down. Instead he wonders what kind of makeup she's wearing today.

x-x-x

He finds her standing just off to the side of the pool, fidgeting with her eyeliner and dabbing the corner of her eye.

"Gou?" he approaches her cautiously, but even so, she almost jumps out of her skin.

"Shit – Makoto! I mean, sorry, hi! What can I do for you?" Makoto smiles lopsidedly when she swears; it's an uncanny resemblance to Rin but she pulls it off differently from her brother. Rin comes off as aggressive, a little pushy, and a lot on-edge. Gou makes it seem more like an innocent accident, like she can't help reveal what a foul-mouth she actually is.

In the back of his mind, Makoto berates himself for making presumptions about their team manager based on her tendency to swear occasionally. Even further back in his mind, he notes that if she were in any, say, _intimate_ situations, she might be more keen on showing off just how dirty she could talk.

Wait, what.

He shakes his thoughts a million miles away before they can catch up with his tongue and pacifies Gou, "Nothing! Are _you_ okay? Was there something in your eye?"

Gou smiles weakly. _So maybe he hasn__'__t noticed._

"Yes, but it's fine now," she says calmly before taking a deep breath and pulling herself together, "N-now go and be a captain! You have a particularly tough regimen today so I expect you to work hard!" Makoto raises his eyebrows amusedly at the abrupt change in her tone and grins down at her fondly before moving away.

"Yes, ma'am," he obliges playfully.

And… maybe he's just flustered and the confusion is making him see things but there's a pink tinge to her cheeks and he knows _for a fact _(thanks to Nagisa, the little shit) that Gou doesn't wear blush when there's swim practice.

_Maybe I should_ –

"By the way, Gou?" he stops in his tracks, pulling his swim cap tight over his hair.

"Yes!" she answers immediately, pulling the clipboard closer to her chest in anticipation.

"You look incredible today," Makoto starts, turning his head just a few degrees back towards Gou's direction, "but you've always looked beautiful without the makeup."

Gou's mouth drops a little for just a second before she snaps out of it and tries to stammer something - _anything, you idiot!_ - in response. Her breath is knocked out of her when Makoto turns a few angles more to make eye contact with her. The son of a bitch even gives her another one of those genuine, lopsided smiles before turning around and climbing into the pool.

x-x-x

The next day, when Makoto and Haru walk onto the roof for lunch, Chigusa and Gou are already sitting against the wall with their lunch boxes.

When Makoto catches a glimpse of Gou, his heart does a little jumping-jack.

She isn't wearing makeup.

- fin -

**More Notes**: *100,000,000 yen is roughly the equivalent of 1,000,000 dollars; "…she always manages to look like a million dollars" or "a a hundred million yen," get it? ha ha currency


End file.
